


The Good Child

by SweetHarty



Category: Naruto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-06-05 08:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6696928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetHarty/pseuds/SweetHarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yoko is reborn with little memory and less coordination, she decides to live her life in the shadows, fear of the unknown keeping her in line. Sakura thinks Yoko is stuck up. Naruto thinks that Yoko needs to sleep. Sasuke thinks she's the only smart girl in class. And Kakashi thinks his shortest and quietest ward is hiding something. Yoko, on the other hand, thinks she's being followed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Haruno Sakura and Yoko were born three hours apart, and when born they had wildly different reactions. Sakura, the older, was born screaming, crying, with limbs flailing.

Yoko, their dainty darling, was born quietly, her breathing labored in the nearly silent delivery room. Yoko was silent even when the doctor sucked the fluid from her mouth and throat, even when the doctor lay a sharp smack on her fluid covered bottom, and even when her small, now clean, body was laid on her mothers milk producing breast.

Yoko knew she was too quiet, she knew that at 8 months old she should have been wailing when she fell on her sister, or soiled her diaper, but she kept quiet; she had even developed a way of communicating with her parents, the small motions of her baby soft fingers and large milky green eyes portraying far more in the span of a second than her flailing lips and tongue could do at the age she was.

Kizashi and Mebuki both worried after their daughters, and while they grew and progressed much like their friends own children, none of their children were quite as quiet as their little Yoko. Mebuki had even gone to one of her Yamanaka connections for a mental check up, only to find that there was nothing wrong with her over quiet child, and after that, she simply accepted the quiet nature of her young daughter.

Yoko was careful as she grew, she kept rigid control over her body, training in the quiet of dawn while her sister slept and her parents listened quietly. At the young age of five and a half she found that while her body was limber, her days of dancing may never arrive again. That was the first, and last time Mebuki and Kizashi had been able to comfort Yoko, choosing to sit at her side while her body shook with uncontrollable sobs, a hand on her head or shoulder all the comfort she needed.

* * *

  
Yoko sat in seiza, her knees and ankles no longer aching from sitting as such for long periods of time. Sakura sat next to her, her own seiza rather sloppy, her ankles twisted at an angle and her shoulders slouching in with the weight of her tired head. Mebuki and Kizashi sat before them, seemingly guilty looks on their faces as they observed their children. Yoko seemed to be bursting at the seams with energy, tightly controlled energy that Mebuki could see pool around her body, a piece lashing out and ‘licking’ at Sakura’s lazy toes, which she promptly curled properly as she straightened her shoulders and spine, simultaneously flicking a playful glare at her more poised sister.

“Sakura, Yoko.” Kizashi began, a hand running through his spiked hair. “Your mother and I have-I mean-We’re going-”

“Kizashi!” Mebuki scolded, her jade eyes flashing an inner fire at her sheepish husband. “Yoko, you father and I will be going on a trip. The Oba-san down the block will check up on you two to make sure you’re going to school, and if you need any forms from the school to be signed, she will have legal rights to do so.”

Yoko could feel her toes prickling from lack of blood circulation, but she nodded her head, having realized only a few months ago that Sakura’s parents were traders-and nomad traders never stayed in one place for long. She was surprised they had stayed even as long as they did, but Sakura did need a lot of looking after, so she understood.

“But Ka-chan!” Sakura pouted, her pink hair bristled and her face marred by a deep frown.

“No, Sakura, your father and I will be back in four months and we will write every week.” Mebuki sternly soothed, her husky voice mellow in the evening light.

“I-I hate you!” Sakura suddenly exploded out of her seiza, anger and fear and sadness warring in her stomach and heart, tears welled in her beautiful jade eyes. “I’ll never forgive you for leaving me!” Sakura screamed, her feet swift in their retreat.

“What are we going to do about her?” Mebuki asked, voice soft and tone resigned.

“She’ll grow out of it. I’m sure of it.” Kizashi claimed, although he doubted it would be anytime soon.

“Yoko, you’ll take care of her?” Though Mebuki phrased the question as such, it was a statement, a sure claim that she knew would always be true.

Though Yoko didn’t respond verbally, the sure nod of her head confirmed Mebuki’s rhetorical question and the blonde smiled, her hand automatically going to pet the soft hair of her child. When she found that Yoko’s pastel pink hair wasn’t under her palm she looked at her standing child in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” Mebuki asked, her eyes following her daughters line of sight to the edge of the forest, where an ANBU crouched, blood running in rivulets from numerous injuries-but Mebuki couldn’t see the ANBU, and neither should the young girl have been able to.

Yoko simply shook her head and began to walk into the forest. She knew her parents couldn’t see the darkly dressed figure, but her keen eyes picked up the undulations in the scenery, and she blatantly began to walk in that direction.

* * *

Please comment, but be nice!


	2. Chapter 2

Yoko could see the ANBU. Not in the sense that she could make out his features, but she could still see the ANBU, the trained, beaten, bloody ANBU.

Her mother was back in the house, her disposition being that if her child wasn’t worried then neither should she be.

Yoko didn’t bother with introductions, preferring to look the ANBU over with clinical sharpness, taking in the numerous cuts and blood splatters on the Shinobi garb. Her Chakra was measly at best, so she settled for pulling a gauze roll from a hidden compartment in her pants.

She didn’t move particularly slowly, but she was a defenseless child, not worthy of a Shinobi's-especially an ANBU’s- suspicion, or even wariness.

The ANBU had several contusions to his abdomen, but they had been staunched by what Yoko assumed was emergency medical ninjutsu, and so she proceeded how she knew she would have if she were in an Emergency Room.

The contusion was deep, the ninjutsu only seemed to ‘glue’ the top layers of the flesh together enough for the transportation home. Yoko pulled a pair of forceps from the compartment and the ANBU would have raised a brow, but his eyes were going funny and he didn’t want to risk exerting too much energy. Somehow the ANBU extended the cloaking technique to the young pinkette, his eyes going blank but secure in the knowledge that she-they wouldn’t be discovered for another three hours if he didn’t wake up before then.

Yoko could tell, when the ANBU passed out, from the way his body slumped to the side even as she used the forceps to rip the top layer of skin again, knowing that if she were to cut with a scalpel it would heal slower, but she needed to know how deep the cut was and how many stitches she would need-if any.

And so she worked in tireless silence, not noticing when three ANBU joined her and became her medical team, providing her with sufficient lighting and coverage, even as they wondered who this mystery girl was.

At around twelve o’clock Yoko sat back, her hair yanked back in a disheveled bun, her skin lightly pallid and sweaty in the light provided by one of the ANBU at her back. Her job was done, every cut on the injured ANBU was either bandaged or thoroughly sterilized, and yet somehow she felt like she had missed something. She glanced over the male carefully, her eyes scanning, but still not finding what made her feel like she had yet to do something.

Yoko didn’t bother to glance upwards, but after her third perusal of the ANBU’s body she found that his face must have been where the other injury was and steadfastly began to undo the straps that kept the mask in place, only to be stilled by hands on her wrists. A glare firmly set on her face at the people who dared to interrupt her while she was treating a patient, she quickly shook off the hands. Yoko took a calming breath, then motioned obviously towards the largest cut on the ANBU’s torso and then towards the face of said ANBU operative.

The hands gave way with reluctant hesitation as she flipped the mask from the ANBU’s face, not bothering with the obviously fine part of his face and instead focusing in on the huge scar on his left eye and the bleeding slice over the same cheek. Yoko trudged on, her hands meticulously working as she sterilized the site, then headed in with a needle.

By the time she was done stitching her eyes hurt as bad as her back, and her fingers had cramped more than three times, but she had just perfected a medical ninjutsu two weeks ago, and he was the perfect subject.

Softly rubbing her hands together Yoko breathed some of the natural chakra onto her hands, allowing the muscles and tendons to uncramp, then she slid her hands into a simple prayer motion, concentrated on the miniature ball of purple blue light inside of her minds-eye and drug out just enough to heal the nerve damage in his eye, theoretically by doing this Yoko would be allowing him to shut off chakra to the eye, and while it wouldn’t shut off the Sharingan it would make it unworkable and vision would be minimal at best.

Yoko was nervous, he was after all her first patient to receive this treatment, but she calmed herself enough to cup her green chakra laced hand on his injured eye.

The ANBU chose this moment to wake up, slamming his palm into her sternum and flinging her away from his body. Yoko could hear and feel the crack form, though she didn’t know-nope she knew, inhaling was hard: it was a rib. Her body wouldn’t have been ready for that kind of injury, and with her mind being so exhausted after a few days without sleep, she knocked out only moments after identifying the crack as rib and not sternum.

* * *

 

Some incongruencies have been pointed out to me but please keep in mind that this is a fan production and not everything will be in character or perfectly parallel to the original show/manga.


	3. Chapter 3

Kakashi stared at the pint sized girl, his eye taking in every nuance he could see, from her pale pink roots to her vanilla cream skin and all the way to her pale yellow and orange tipped fingers. She had been sedated two nights ago when his ANBU team had brought them in, wary of her small bones being injured in her unusually vigorous sleep.

She would wake soon, Inoichi had taken the sedative from the drip as soon as Kakashi had woken, knowing that he himself would want to question the person who had prepared him. Not to mention that after he had read the report his squad had filled out he was curious about the just she had tried to use on his eye.

Kakashi heard her groan and flipped open his book, feigning lazy interest while subtly watching the young girl wake up.

Her whole body shifted to get away from the light streaming through the window, her hair falling to rest in a bundle across her face, disguising her eyes from Kakashi's view.

“What day is it?” Her lips parted just enough for him to see her pointed eye teeth gleam at him. Her voice was husky even in its childishness, the two days of sleep affecting her more than just her slightly thinner frame.

“Thursday,” He responded, resolutely staring at the kanji scrawled over the worn pages of his book. “You’ve been asleep for two days.”

“You still alive?” Her voice was clearing up little by little.

“Do you make a habit of talking to the dead, Haruno-chan?”

“Only on the weekends.” she stopped and struggled to push herself into a sitting position. “During the week people stare at me funny if I sit in the cemetery.”

Kakashi lowered his book to stare at the struggling pink haired seven year old. “You see dead people?” His voice was distinctly un- interested yet Yoko could detect the undertone of ‘what the fuck’ in his voice. A laugh exploded from her sore throat, her shoulders shaking as she leant against the headboard of the dinky hospital bed.

“I don’t lie, Kakashi-san.” Yoko said as she pulled her hair from underneath her butt, curling the knotted and grungy strands around her fist, grimacing at the ends even as she began to swiftly twine and wrap her hair until it ran in a braid all the way down the back of her head and trailed to her minuscule hips.

Kakashi blinked in surprise, the braid had been done in under two minutes and with skill he hadn’t seen in a very long time, but he was still caught on her last statement. “Who did you get my name from?”

“Don’t accuse me,” Yoko tried to placate, “she never tells me her name, calls herself ‘ka-chan.’ I don’t even know if you ever even met her, she never talks about herself in the present, only of you being her best achievement and how proud she is of you.”

“Is she here now?” Kakashi couldn’t help choking out.

_Yes, she loves you so much, yes, she is always beside you! Yes._

Yoko resists the urge to lie and instead shakes her head with a rueful sigh. “Thats what everyone wants to know when I tell them, mind you you’re only the third person I’ve spoken to about such an ability.”

“If my mother isn’t here then how do you know who I am?” Kakashi asked shakily, but Yoko only smiled very sadly at him, allowing him to infer who was around him.

Taking a deep breath and clearing her throat Yoko smacked her legs. “Well!” The word exploded past her dry lips and she licked the pale appendages, her eyes flickering to the window and then the door then back to her hands again, her uncertainty in such a situation completely obvious.

Kakashi took a moment of silence to gather himself before he closed his book and began to ask his fifty four questions.

* * *

 

This chapter is very short, and I'm sorry.


	4. 4

Yoko was released from the hospital only three hours after waking up, her mother and father met her at the sign out desk, Sakura propped on her mothers hip with a sorrowful expression on her face.

“Is Yo-nee alright now?” Sakura asked in her regressed state, her grammar and poise lost in her fear for her sister. But Yoko was quick to hug and silently reassure her older but immature twin.

Only at this time did Yoko realize that she had actually had a conversation with Kakashi, with real words. Elated with the discovery she opened her mouth and tried to say something-only to find that her throat cinched closed and her chest began to ache, she closed her mouth and hugged the brighter pink head closer to her shoulder, sadness heavy in her heart.

The journey to their home was quiet and subdued for the parents and Yoko, but Sakura began to chatter away about how they were going to be starting at the Academy next Monday and how excited she was to be going to kunoichi classes and how sad she was that Yo-nee wouldn’t be joining in on the after school activity that Sakura had begged her mother for.

When they reached the small house Kizashi and Mebuki owned Yoko immediately walked to the bathroom and took a long hot shower. While she bathed Mebuki and Kizashi sat Sakura down to have a serious talk.

“Anata, I’m going to put on some tea, talk with Sakura about how she needs to take care of-“ Mebuki started and smiled at her husbands mature and serious face, the understanding there putting her at ease.

“Sakura, your mother and I still have to go on that trip we told you about. You need to make sure Yoko is taking care of herself and eating and changing her bandages, and actually going to classes.” Kizashi started, looking seriously on his oldest daughter.

“But, tou-chan!” Sakura tried, her face scrunching in distaste, Yoko was always quiet and always got attention away from her, like she was better than Sakura.

“Sakura.” Kizashi scolded, his eyebrows furrowed and his disapproval obvious but ignored by his headstrong daughter.

“NO!” Sakura yelled, standing up, her sour face firmly placed and her hands tight fists. “Yoko always needs help and she is always being spoilt and I-I’m always ignored!” Her voice echoed through their small house and the crash of teacups hitting the floor caught the father daughter duo’s attention.

Mebuki stood in the doorway, shock in her expression as she stared at her older daughter. “How could you say that?” She whispered, incomprehensible.

“You always give her what ever she wants but she never even talks to you, but when I want something it’s ‘no sakura-chan, we don’t have the money today’ but when she looks at something too long its always, ‘we’ll take one of those too please’. I deserve that, I’m always nice and I never get in trouble and- and I never have to go to the hospital!” Sakura ended her spiel, huffing and puffin with tears glittering in her emerald eyes.

“We never knew you felt that way Sakura.” Mebuki said, now sad as she looked upon her supposedly neglected child.

Yoko stood to the side of the door, her head resting against the pale green of the wall, tears also glittering in her own opalescent sage eyes. She couldn’t help but feel like she was intruding, so after wiping the unfallen tears from her lashes she traipsed back up the stairs and into Sakura’s room.

Yoko climbed into her soft, warm, non-judgmental futon and curled into herself, burying herself into her covers. With shaking shoulders, Yoko fell into a deep deep sleep, her dreams dark and scary, but not remembered when she woke.


	5. 5

Sakura was jealous of Yoko because she felt Yoko was an attention hog.

Yoko was jealous because she knew what Sakura could become and that built on her envy.

In other words Sakura was jealous for the wrong reasons and Yoko was too.

After all there’s never a good reason to be jealous of someone is there?

But Yoko wasn’t just jealous of Sakura because of her future, but rather, her jealousy was a conglomeration of things that were both shallow and deep.

Yoko’s two favorite and most envied characteristics of Sakura’s were her determination and genuine friendliness. Yoko on the other hand was painfully aware of her flimsy resolve and lackluster ability to even muster a smile on a good day.

Yoko wasn’t always good at identifying beauty, but she truly thought that Sakura- pink haired, emerald eyed, black eyelashes, big forehead- was beautiful. Yoko knew she looked like a ghost, her pale pink hair reminiscent of a dried rose, her eyes much like an elderly persons, so milky in their depth, her skin didn’t help either, she hadn’t slept a whole night in more than two years, but she figured it was simply a phase.

Sakura on the other hand was all bright vivacious color, hell even her eyelashes were black to Yoko’s own pale grey-pink ones. But Yoko couldn’t hate her sister for this, and it rather made her love the beautiful Sakura she would become more, and wish the weakling she was now, away.

* * *

 

Their Academy class was gradually getting smaller, civilian children with no hope dropping out first, then children who couldn’t unlock their chakra, then students who simply couldn’t keep up with the workout.

And soon Sakura, Yoko, and four other students were moved from that class and into a larger one, the one with a bright blonde boy in it, as well as a quiet and rather shy dark haired one.

Sakura near immediately made friends with a blue haired girl after the introductions were made, but Yoko hesitantly made her way to the back of the class-the highest pew. No one sat there and Yoko instantly felt loneliness crush down on her, but resisted the drawl of simply laying down her head and giving in.

Three more boys from different classes joined and they slotted into the class hierarchy within minutes, and Yoko inevitably felt the jaws of loneliness pull her further from the class.

“Hey! Why are you sitting up here all alone!” Yoko jumped and squeaked inelegantly as the blonde landed loudly on the desk before her. “Don’t you get lonely?” The boy-Naruto, Yoko made the connection-said quieter.

Yoko slowly nodded but shrugged as she crossed her arms and pulled her jacket tighter around her frame.

“Then I will sit with you!” Naruto shouted as he stood to his full height and gave her a thumbs up. “My name is Uzumak, Naruto and I’m going to be the best Hokage ever! Believe it!” Yoko smiled a little at this and was shocked by the flying chalk that knocked the loud boy down and into the chair beside her.

“Naruto! Knock it off!” The teacher at the front called, his head growing bigger under a small genjutsu, his scarred nose coming a tad close to their area even as Yoko plucked the chalk from the floor and nailed it straight towards the teachers vest-right over his heart, where the chunin reflexively caught the solid before it hit but looked on with wide eyes.

A small kind-fake-smile creased Yoko’s face and she nodded calmly towards the Chunin.

“Hey, how’d you do that?” Naruto stage whispered and Yoko looked at the blonde with incredulity.

The rest of the day was spent rather uneventfully, and as the twins were making their way home all Sakura could talk about was her precious Sasuke.

Somewhere in her babbling Sakura began to make a bit of sense. “Sasuke-kun’s birthday was just yesterday, he turned seven, and I heard that he likes tomatoes a lot, do you think that I should make him some tomato salad…” And thats when Yoko zoned out, sadness and future events weighting on her mind.

Seven, so I only have three hundred sixty three days left. This won’t end well.


End file.
